When you’re trying to build an online business for any length of time and you’re not having success no matter what you try, it can become rather demoralizing. This is actually a pretty common occurrence that I see from people – they’ve put a bunch of work in, they’ve bought all the tools and taken more online courses than you could shake a stick at but it’s still not happening.
It’s pretty easy in a situation like this to see why you’d become cynical.
In fact, here’s something that I think often is not always apparent, most people who try to build an online business fail. Not just once, but several times over sometimes a period of years.
Today, I was involved in a discussion where someone said that the idea of just about anyone being able to become successful building an online business was a myth.
I interjected and said that I disagreed.
“But hold on a second, you just said most people fail multiple times…”
I did say that and it’s entirely true, but it’s also entirely true that pretty much everyone can also be successful.
Here’s the next statement I made (which another person called “semantics”), “Don’t confuse the idea that people “can’t” be successful with people who “don’t” become successful.”
See the subtle difference?
Anyone “can” do it, most people just “don’t” do it.
Let me take a step back because this is starting to smell a lot like a Hopium pitch.
People who make their money selling the dream of working from a cafe while you travel the world making a six-figure income passive between having drinks with your mates are telling you lies. They are usually telling you that it’s easy to achieve this unicorn lifestyle and that if you listen to them, then you too can have this magical lifestyle.
They just usually forget the parts where they tell you that you need to have a good idea that people will pay money for, you need to have a plan that you execute supremely well and then you have to turn that into a repeatable system that you can scale.
Easy peasy.
Except it’s not easy.
It’s really hard.
It takes a lot of work and a disproportionate amount of discipline and grit.
You need to have a level of confidence and single-mindedness that probably exceeds anything that you’ve ever imagined yourself doing.
Which is why most people “don’t” do it – it’s hard… a lot harder than most people tell you.
But… In my opinion, pretty much anyone can do it.
Let’s be honest, with all of the technology available today and the free information on offer at sites like YouTube, there isn’t really anything you can’t learn or figure out in a couple of hours if you put your head down.
Now, I’m talking about learning how to write iOS apps or anything like that, but if you want to put up a WordPress site, collect some emails and start selling stuff online, you could figure that out in under six hours by watching YouTube videos – it might not be pretty or perfect, but it would be a passable start.
So that takes us back to a good idea, executing a plan and creating a repeatable system.
Those things are like the seed – you now need to plant it, fertilize it, keep the pests away, water it and eventually harvest it.
Those things just require commitment and hard work over a period of time.
Which goes right back to the point of why people “don’t” have success – they aren’t really willing to put the hard work.
They want to “create content” but they don’t want to do the “marketing” – that’s because that’s the hard and uncomfortable stuff.
They want to “outsource” the execution of their strategy without having done it themselves and built the systems around it. They think they can just pay someone in the Philippines the princely sum of $3/hr to figure it out, but hey, “that’s a lot of money in that country.”
So yeah, anyone can be successful in building an online business… But most people aren’t because they just aren’t willing to ensure they have a good idea and then do the dirty work for as long as it takes.